Why do people still suffer, in spite of God’s abundant grace for His children? They do so, when they take God’s grace for granted. It is most unfortunate that some people, who have benefitted immensely from the grace God has made available for them, later take Him for granted. It did not start today. It is as old as man. That was why Apostle Paul asked in Rom 6:1, ‘Shall we continue in sin that grace will abound?’ ‘Tufiakwa,’ he spat out as it will make us the servants of sin.
Uncle Samson’s birth was by the revelation of God. God told Mrs. Manoah that she would bear a son, Samson, and specified his ministry and the type of food and drink the woman would avoid. When he grew up to start his ministry, his life was tainted with sexual immorality. The first thing he did was to find a woman in Timnath, an unbeliever. He refused to listen to his parents’ counsel not to marry her. In Gaza, he found a harlot and later, Delilah, who betrayed him and caused his shameful death. He had thought that he could still take God’s grace for granted, and do business as usual, ’And wish not that the Lord was departed from him’. It should be noted that God, as He has always done, never withdrew the ministerial gifts He bestowed on him.
Saul was nobody until God made him the first king in Israel. After anointing him king, Prophet Samuel told him to go to Gilgal and stay there seven days till he came to sacrifice to God. Although Saul was there and spent seven days, impatience made him not to ‘wait until I shall come to show thee what thou shall do’. Saul went ahead and did the sacrifice reserved only for the priest. Later in his life, God told him [Saul] to destroy all the Amalekites and he did what he liked. Losing God’s favour, evil spirits possessed him. It was David, a youth, that helped him through his music. When Goliath posed a great threat to him and all Israel, it was the same David that killed the man mountain. Forgetting how he ascended the throne, inordinate ambition for Jonathan, his son, to succeed him, made him hunt for the head of David. It was during his fourth attempt to kill him that the Philistines attacked. He and Jonathan were killed, Jonathan becoming a victim of circumstance. And David became the king.
Moses enjoyed much of God’s grace right from birth. By royal decree, all male children born at the same time with him were killed except him. Adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, his mother was in her payroll for raising him. At maturity, he lived in the Palace, where he might have noticed Pharaoh’s enormous power and was consumed by the ambition to rule. He forgot that everything has a time and a season. To project his ambition, he murdered an Egyptian, who was having an issue with a Jew. The next day, he went out and saw two Jews slugging it out and in an attempt to settle the matter, one of them lifted the veil. He asked Moses, who made him a Prince and their Judge and reminded him how he killed an Egyptian. That was why Moses fled to Median, a type of Bible School, where he lived for 40 years. There he was thoroughly humbled, what Judges normally do to someone for contempt of court. Imagine a prince becoming a shepherd! When God noticed that he was okay, He revealed Himself to him and told him to lead His people out of Egypt. Moses adjudged himself unfit until God encouraged him.
After a retreat with God for the Ten Commandments, Moses caught Aaron leading God’s people to idolatry. In anger, he ‘broke’ the Commandments before any man broke them. He also grinded the gods they were worshipping and forced them to drink it, not considering the health hazard. The people of God later lacked water and confessed evil things against God. God, by His grace, told Moses and Aaron to speak to the rock in their presence and that water would come out. There, Moses called them, ‘Rebels’. Anger! A Christian, calling someone ‘idiot’! A Christian, manifesting anger! Not yet done, he struck the rock twice, instead of speaking to it. Anger! Water still came out. Miracles do not justify holiness. God told Moses and Aaron that they would not enter Canaan. Aaron later died.
One day, God pointed at Canaan from a distance and told Uncle Moses that it was Canaan, a type of Heaven. I could imagine the excitement of Moses. I could imagine him shouting ‘Praise the Lord!’ God must have called him to order. ‘I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither,’ God told him. Not enter what? Not enter into a place he had laboured for 80 years! May it not happen to you in your dream. May it not happen to your worst enemy. Me, to miss Heaven? What of my fasting and prayers? What of my retreats and crusades? What of my tithes and offerings? What of my labour and sacrifices? I say, may it not happen to you, even in the dream! And he did not enter there. Yes, Uncle Moses did not enter there.
Uncle only saw it with his eyes but did not enter there. And that was the man, who God used in parting the Red sea, a man, because of his prayers, manna fell from Heaven for the people of God to eat. Yes, the Lord is the God of grace but He is also a consuming fire and the God of justice. Every coin has two sides if it will spin in the economic market. Paul pointed out the goodness and severity of God to the Roman Church – Rom 11:22. Why did Moses build and could not inhabit the house, he sowed and someone else reaped it? In Revelation 21:27, the Bible declares: ‘There shall in no wise enter into it [Heaven], anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie…’
The offence of Moses was that he took God’s grace for granted. The soul that sinneth it shall die’; ‘My little children, sin not,’ Apostle John warned, ‘but if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father’. Yes, confess your sins to Him now and leave them. On the cross, the Lord Jesus wept, I say that Jesus, Who God declared as His beloved Son, in Whom, He is well pleased, cried, ‘Father, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ God did nothing. There was no more grace as He was carrying our sins. If God did nothing at that time for Jesus, will He do for you if you die in your sin? You can draw near to Him now, confess your sins to Him, plead for forgiveness and accept Jesus into your life as your Lord and Saviour.
For further comment, Please contact: Osondu Anyalechi: 0802 3002-471; [email protected]